Augmented Reality 3D Model Technology: Enhance Your eCommerce Site

Augmented Reality 3D Model Apps: Benefits, Challenges, and Solutions

Augmented reality 3D model technology can provide eCommerce site visitors with exceptionally engaging experiences. Visitors can see your products from multiple angles, try them virtually, or preview how they look in their homes. This makes products more realistic and appealing, increasing engagement and sales. But implementing 3D augmented reality strategies can be challenging because of the technical issues involved.

In this article, we’ll show you how to create augmented reality 3D eCommerce models without getting bogged down in technical issues. First, we’ll examine what augmented reality 3D models are and how they benefit eCommerce retailers. Then we’ll explore some of the challenges of delivering 3D AR experiences. Next, we’ll discuss how the VNTANA 3D eCommerce platform helps you overcome these issues. Finally, we’ll show you how to create augmented reality 3D models using two methods.

Main Takeaways:

1. Augmented reality 3D models enhance images of physical objects by combining multi-dimensional digital representations of objects with features such as multiple camera angles, zooming, and overlays.
2. AR benefits eCommerce retailers by making products more realistic and engaging, letting customers try products out digitally, increasing sales, and reducing returns.
3. Challenges of implementing 3D AR include technical learning curves, managing file size and formats, and delivering models to different devices and media.
4. VNTANA solves these challenges by taking a user-friendly approach that employs file optimization, supports multiple file types, and works on different devices and media.
5. 3D models can be created by scanning physical objects or combining multiple product images into 3D images (photogrammetry).

What Is An Augmented Reality 3D Model?

Augmented reality 3D models enhance images of physical objects by combining multi-dimensional digital representations of objects with other digital features that add realism and functionality. Additional features may include multiple camera angles, zoom capability, and overlays that provide information or allow objects to be viewed against live backgrounds. For example, a customer shopping for shoes may be able to select a shoe model from an online catalog and take a selfie picture of their feet to see how they’d look wearing the item.

Five Benefits of Offering AR Experiences

3D augmented reality content offers various benefits for eCommerce retailers:

1. Immersive online experience: 3D AR models make products look more realistic, giving customers a more immersive retail experience that more closely simulates the hands-on experience of the product.
2. Increased customer engagement: AR realism increases customer engagement, inviting customers to view objects more closely and interact with them.
3. Realistic product preview:3D AR models support virtual try-ons, allowing customers to see digital previews of how wearing an item or having it in their home or yard would look.
4. Increased conversions: By providing a more realistic and engaging preview of products, 3D AR increases product appeal, reduces buyer reluctance, and boosts sales.
5. Decreased return rates: Because 3D AR gives customers a realistic preview of products, they become less likely to return items, reducing returns.

These benefits have made 3D AR modeling an increasingly popular marketing and sales tool.

Potential Challenges of Implementing 3D AR Experiences

To realize the benefits of 3D AR models, companies must overcome some potential challenges:

1. Technical know-how: Creating 3D AR models requires some technical knowledge or the support of a provider experienced with the 3D AR design and development process.
2. File size: The graphical demands of 3D modeling can make 3D AR files quite large, creating potential storage and file-sharing issues with wholesalers and customers.
3. File format: 3D AR files may be created in various formats, each suited for a different type of AR application (for example, usdz files are designed for iOS devices), so you need to know which format to use.
4. Support for multiple devices and media: To deliver 3D AR experiences to customers, you need to support file delivery and viewing on all devices that customers use and all media, potentially including websites, eCommerce platforms, social media, and gaming platforms.

Solving these issues with in-house talent can be a formidable obstacle. The easiest solution is to get support from a provider who has already addressed these issues.

VNTANA: A Solution for Implementing 3D AR Experiences

The VNTANA eCommerce platform is designed to make it easy for you to deliver 3D AR experiences to customers. VNTANA provides plug-ins to let you upload existing 3D models in bulk, along with 3D model creation services to help you create new 3D AR assets from scans or photos. Your 3D models are optimized to keep file sizes manageable while preserving quality.

Once files have been created, they are organized into an efficient 3D content management system (3D CMS). Stored models can be imported instantly into visual line planning tools and stored in product lifecycle management (PLM) software. VNTANA instantly generates 3D line sheets to share with your internal team and external merchants.

The VNTANA 3D web viewer embeds into any platform via iFrames or APIs, making it easy to share 3D AR files on your website, digital showroom, eCommerce platform, or social media profiles. VNTANA integrates with popular eCommerce and social media apps such as Shopify, Magento, Facebook, and Instagram.

Customization options let you adapt your 3D AR experiences to your needs. Analytics tools help you track and optimize performance. An online library of resources walks you through what you need to know to create 3D AR files using internal AR developers or outsourcing partners.

Case studies document how leading brands have succeeded with VNTANA 3D AR models. For example, retail clothing brand Diesel used VNTANA to add 3D images to their site and manage files that were otherwise too large to deliver online. Using VNTANA, Diesel increased their average shopping cart purchase by 70% compared to results with 2D images.

Sportswear brand Adidas experienced similar success with VNTANA. Adidas wanted to scan their shoes for online viewing in 3D AR, but file sizes and formats proved unmanageable, and the amount of time to scan each image and create the 3D AR model was unfeasible. Using VNTANA’s bulk uploading capability, Adidas quickly generated 3D models of 2,500 shoes, accomplishing in an hour what would have otherwise taken six weeks. The result was sales conversion rates that doubled those attained with 2D images. These are just a couple of use cases illustrating how VNTANA has delivered results for many clients in various industries.

How to Create Augmented Reality 3D Models: Two Different Methods for Creating 3D Assets

VNTANA offers retailers different ways to quickly create 3D assets: scanning and photogrammetry. Scanning requires specialized scanners, while photogrammetry can be done with standard smartphone cameras.

1. Scanning maps dimensions, contours, and lighting of product surfaces by using methods similar to radar, sonar, or lidar. Object surfaces can be captured using a laser scanner that bounces light off the object, a pair of structured light scanners that rotate in relation to the object, or time-of-flight (ToF) scanners that measure the time it takes to bounce light off an object. Captured information gets fed into software to construct images on a three-dimensional coordinate system.
2. Photogrammetry relies on multiple 2D images of a real object taken at different angles to construct 3D images. Once the 2D images have been captured, the software converts them onto 3D coordinate graphs.

Let Your Customers Experience the Future of Online Shopping with VNTANA

AR experiences let you deliver customers more realistic, engaging experiences of what it’s like to own products, increasing sales and reducing returns. Implementing 3D AR can be challenging because of issues such as file size and format management, device compatibility, and multi-media support. Fortunately, VNTANA helps you navigate these challenges by providing a user-friendly solution to create 3D AR models through scanning or photogrammetry.

As more brands adopt 3D AR marketing strategies, effective use of this technology will increasingly become a competitive differentiator. Getting on board today will help you stay ahead in the future. Schedule a demo today to discover what VNTANA can do for your eCommerce strategy and see the advantages of online 3D AR store displays for yourself.